Pennsylvania (Steamboat), U150813, 2 Mar 1899

It is a strange coincidence that two new vessels, one in Detroit and the other in Cleveland launched on the same day, Saturday last, should bear the same name.
The side-wheel passenger steamer PENNSYLVANIA, launched at the Wyandotte yard of the Detroit Dry Dock Co. is to open up a new service about June 1 between Erie and Buffalo. Her runs will be of the daylight excursion kind. She will be a neat, speedy vessel, well suited to the short runs on which she will be engaged Her dimensions are 225 feet length 32 feet beam on deck. 55 feet over guards and 12 feet depth. This vessel will be owned by the Erie & Buffalo Steamboat Co., the officers of which, are: 1 Louis Streuber. Erie, president: Eugene McCall Detroit vice president: Ed Heuer, Erie secretary, and William McFall, Detroit, treasurer and purser.
      The Marine Review
      March 2, 1899


      Buffalo, March 30 - Capt. Frank D. Welcome has been made the master of the new side-wheel steamer PENNSYLVANIA, which is to run between Buffalo and Erie this season.
      The Marine Review
      March 30, 1899



Detroit, Mich., May 24. - On Monday next the Detroit Ship Building Co. will deliver in Erie the side-wheel passenger steamer PENNSYLVANIA, a day boat similar to the FRANK E. KIRBY, owned by Ashley & Dustin, of Detroit, and which is well known on account of the fast run she makes each day during the excursion season between Detroit and Put-in-Bay. The PENNSYLVANIA will not be a 15- mile boat said to run 20 miles an hour. She will in reality be a 20-mile boat and can attain that speed whenever it is required of her. She will leave here Sunday, going by way of the islands and Sandusky, and will give an excursion out of Erie Monday evening. On the short run between Erie and Buffalo it will probably not be necessary to put this vessel on a schedule of more than about 18 miles an hour. She will maintain that speed with ease. Erie will have reason to be proud of her. She will be as fast as either the CITY OF BUFFALO or CITY OF ERIE and will be by no means a small boat. Her license from the government inspectors will provide for about 1,200 excursionists. As her run calls for no night passages, space is not given up to staterooms, and with plenty of open deck and cabin room she will, therefore, accommodate a very large number of excursionists.
Mr. E. McFall, of Sandusky, manager of the Toledo & Island Steamboat Co., organized the company that owns this vessel, and has looked after everything pertaining to her construction. As he has spent his whole life on vessels of this kind he knew what was wanted for the Erie-Buffalo service, hut he has gone further than to furnish a fast, substantial craft. He has exercised rare good taste in finishing the vessel She is altogether a handsome craft without the slightest indication anywhere of an effort to save money in her construction.
      The PENNSYLVANIA is of steel, of the side-wheel type and of the following dimensions: Length, 214 feet, beam, molded, 32 feet; depth, 12 feet. The paddle-wheels are 23 feet in diameter and are each fitted with nine feathering buckets of 9 by 4 feet surface dimensions. The engine, which is of the beam type, has a cylinder of 48 inches bore and feet stroke, and is supplied with steam from two Scotch boilers, each 13 feet 2 inches diameter by 11 feet 6 inches long. The boilers are fitted with Howden hot draft appliances. This machinery is expected to develop about 800 horse power and as the vessel is fine- lined and will stand well up out of the water she will certainly be very fast. Everything in the way of auxiliary machinery is entirely modern. The electric light plant is of 400 16-candle-power-lights capacity.
Entering this vessel aft on the main deck the passenger finds the usual arrangement of vestibule, clerk's office, check room, etc. Just aft of this, on either side of an entrance to the dining room on the lower deck, are rooms for some of the officers and for the accommodation of lady passengers. The dining room is handsomely fitted in white and gold, with accommodations for about fifty, and just forward of it is a galley with swinging door connections and provided with everything in the way of cooking utensils that would be found on the largest of the passenger steamers. Leading up from the vestibule, or main entrance to the upper deck is a broad stairway, with a casing of unusually fine workmanship, and a large mirror just in front of the upper landing. This upper deck is given up almost entirely to the main saloon, finished in mahogany and very nicely decorated. Here are the general accommodations for passengers, with entrances to the open deck spaces in bow and stern. There are some ten or twelve state rooms, well furnished, but these will probably not be used very much except in cases of sickness or during very unfavorable weather. The cafe or bar, finished in antique oak and one of the neatest parts of the ship, is well up in the bow, below the passenger deck, and removed entirely from the main cabin.
In this vessel are embodied improvements in plumbing and ventilating appliances that will make her the peer of any ship afloat from a sanitary standpoint. The entire system of plumbing is the best ever put into a vessel on the great lakes. Kenney flushometers are used throughout the closets. The adoption of this device is in itself a very marked advance in ship plumbing. It will undoubtedly he used on all new vessels when its advantages are fully understood. Improvements made in the McCreery ventilating system which is also applied to PENNSYLVANIA, will do away entirely with objections regarding impure air in the dining room or in other parts below deck. The new steamer will be commanded by Capt. Harry Tyrie, formerly on the steamer Metropolis, running between Toledo and Put-in-Bay. Joseph Wells is chief engineer and W. H. McFall, Jr., clerk.
      The Marine Review
      May 25, 1899



      Included among new vessels in the July supplement of the Inland Lloyd's Register are the following: Side-wheel steamer PENNSYLVANIA, owned by Erie and Buffalo Steamboat Co., valued at $100,000 and rated A1; steamer GLOBE (rebuilt and lengthened), Bessemer Steamship Co. of Cleveland, $220,000, A1; steel barge MANILA, Minnesota Steamship Co.. Cleveland, $175,000, A1; wooden barge SANTIAGO, James Davidson, West Bay City, $95,000, A1* steel barge JOHN SMEATON, Bessemer Steamship Co., Cleveland, $175,000, A1.
      The Marine Review
      July 6, 1899